So with all this change and newness (and grumbling) rolling around Facebook, now is probably as good a time as ever to step back and reexamine our relationship with the planet's favorite place to both stalk ex-girlfriends AND play Scrabble. A time to revisit some of the basic ground rules and avoid some of the most common user offenses, or as I like to call them: More here

Bhikkhus, if you develop and make much this one thing, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction. What is it? It is recollecting the Enlightened One. If this single thing is recollected and made much, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction.Anguttara-Nikaya: Ekanipata: Ekadhammapali: PañhamavaggaBuddhanussatiSCVSMVMMBS

I am actually working right now on a collection of images in response to the flaky motivational pollution floating around Facebook. I hope that in the future such nonsense will be as faux-pas as forwarded e-mails.

After reading the article it just seems like a bunch of unnecessary fault finding and negativity. Who are we to decide what people should do on FB or anywhere else for that matter? No, the things that most people spend their time with on FB don't generally appeal to me (although I do like to post the occasional inspiring sutta quote--something which got me branded a fortune cookie by one of my friends) but that's just a preference. It's too easy to find fault and much harder to perceive the good. Being prone to snarkiness myself I have often returned to the Aghatavinaya Sutta and reflected on just how badly I need to dwell on the wholesome qualities of others because I have lived a lifetime of doing otherwise. Here is a link for those interested http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.162.than.html. Be well.

To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas.-Dhp. 183

It isn't so much about fault-finding as it is about proper etiquette, which has yet to be firmly established on Facebook. Seeing fault in frivolous, wasteful communication is the basis on which we can establish such proper etiquette. The way in which we utilize the medium can and should be optimized. If someone is going to share something, it should be important enough to be worth sharing. We shouldn't adopt a passive attitude and simply accept the inundation of idle chatter.